The Illusionist
by SagittariusQuill
Summary: After a break-in at the Manor by a new enemy, the boys experience first-hand the secret tragedies and private moments that show who each of the Bats truly are. An unsettling number have to do with the current Robin. Meanwhile, Harley Quinn enlists the help of Robin to help take down this new threat. She just doesn't explain particulars very well.
1. Chapter 1

**Hey guys! Trying my hand at the some Batman now. Don't forget to read and review!**

 **The Illusionist**

"Any heat signatures, Proxy?" Robin swore she heard someone calling to her from inside the Monarch Theatre.

She wasn't stupid, she knew what this place was, what it meant to Batman. So she wasn't going to bust the door down and walk into a trap. It had to be a trap, the sound of a woman calling "Robin."

But, on the off chance (the _way_ off chance) that this was someone who needed her help, she stuck around, but in the shadows.

It was the fact that the woman was calling for Robin that made her suspicious. Batman purposefully made them (Nightwing, Red Robin, Red Hood) take routes at random so that no one could memorize their schedules and predict where they would be. And Robin couldn't see anyone through any of the windows, and, though that didn't mean they _hadn't_ seen her, she found it unlikely they had. They knew she was coming, more likely.

Proxy's gravelly voice replied over the wire, "Yeah, one in the auditorium. It looks like they're... pacing?"

"Thanks, bae. I'm going in."

"That's not a good idea, R. We don't know which one that is."

Robin snorted. Proxy thought it was a trap, too. She and Proxy (and Babs) were generally always on the same page.

"Well, let's narrow it down. Find out where the big swigs are. Where's Joker?"

"Arkham."

"Bane?"

"Blackgate."

"Seriously? Why isn't he in Arkham?"

"Well behaved when on drugs."

"Fantastic. Make sure B knows about that."

"Will do."

"Black Mask?" Robin still felt that chilling stutter in her chest, over two years later. She would always have that, she supposed. It was stupid and irrational.

Actually, given the criminal track record for Gotham, it could easily happen again tomorrow.

"Arkham. So's Ivy and Croc. And Penguin."

Robin barked a laugh. "Be serious, Proxy. Penguin is like a b-minus level at the very most. Most people entirely ignore his existence, anyway."

"True. If it's none of them, who is it?"

"Where's Harleen?" Robin asked instantly.

"Erm..." the clacking of keys came over the wire, "Quinzel... No idea. She's not in Arkham."

Robin huffed. It actually angered her how little attention they gave the former psychologist at the ward. "Harley Quinn" really wasn't _bad_. Sure, Bruce and Dick might disagree, but, all things considered (and by "all things," she meant versus the rest of the loons), Harley was a saint. More or less. Given the right treatment, she could potentially be healed... yeah, that was wistful thinking, but this Robin was nothing if not hopeful.

"Who lets those idiots run that place? They wouldn't know a sick person if they... you know—"

"—were doctors in charge of their welfare and healing?"

"Bingo. It's Harleen, by the way, so I'm definitely going in."

"R." There was warning in her tone.

"Relax, she loves me. Seriously, she loves me, and I have no idea why. She used to break out of Arkham to grab coffee with me. She'd even go back willingly afterward."

"Whatever. But if _anything's_ off—"

"I'll get the hell outta there."

:::

Dick wasn't sure how he had done it, but Bruce had managed to get all of his sons under one roof. It was miracle that hadn't happened in five months at least. It was another miracle that nobody was fighting, which hadn't happened in over a year.

"What are you doing?" Damian looked over Tim's shoulder at the laptop screen. They were both in Tim's room. Tim had been typing for going-on seven hours nonstop, and Damian had been reading a book on his bed.

"Work." Tim replied shortly, not looking away from the screen. "And I'm really behind, so can you go away?"

Hurt shone visibly on the (technically, he was still ten) eleven-year-old's round face, and he backed away. "Oh... okay."

Dick frowned deeply. Tim and Damian's relationship had always been rocky, but Damian was making strides to try and fix things between them ever since he came back. And Tim was being difficult for no understandable reason.

Actually, Tim had been very off lately. He was always working, almost never going out on patrol. Dick figured he was going out more than they knew about, but he wasn't checking in with either Batman or Nightwing. And he avoided the Manor like the plague. It had gotten to the point where _Jason_ was spending more time at the Manor than Tim. Along-with, Tim was short with everyone, and it was getting old real quick.

"Why don't you put the computer up, for, like, ten minutes?" Dick made his presence known and leaned against the doorframe. "Jason and I have been waiting for you to start the movie."

"I told you to give me fifteen minutes—"

"—two hours ago." Dick interrupted. Damian was in the process of leaving, but his former partner was in the way.

"Wha..." Tim looked at the clock.

Oh.

"Hey, Dami, go wait for me and Tim in the media room," Dick nudged the youngest Wayne's shoulder, and the boy obeyed.

Tim closed the laptop and fought back a sigh. He already knew there was no way out of having the impending talk.

Dick sat down on the bed across from Tim. "Be nice to Damian."

"I'm not being mean to him."

If Dick was one for growling, he would have growled. "He spent the _entire day_ trying to spend time with you. And you ignored him then cut him off."

Tim stared blankly. He... hadn't noticed. "I-I didn't realize—"

"—of course you didn't!" Dick snapped, causing Tim to jump. His voice sounded eerily like Bruce's reprimanding voice. "Because you're always in that damn laptop! What's the matter with you lately?"

Tim fought back the shiver that ran up his spine. He hated this; he hated how much just getting yelled at by his _big brother_ affected him.

"Hey, Dickie-Face, give it a rest." Damian had gone and tattled on Dick to Jason. Maybe the kid did really care about him. "Come on Timmy, we've got a movie to fall asleep halfway through."

Tim stood quickly and power-walked away from his older brothers (Dick, really) and into the media room. If he'd walked a little slower, he'd hear Jason tell Dick to lay off him.

Tim curled up on the smaller of the couches. It surprised him when Damian plopped down next to him, even with the other empty couch and chairs in the room. He had a giant bowl filled with a ridiculous amount of popcorn. That's not to say they weren't going to eat all of it.

"Hey, Damian?" Tim ran a hand through his hair, a nervous habit he'd always had. "I'm sorry about today, and... you know... I-I wasn't trying to ignore you. I was distracted..."

Damian felt terrible for his older (and technically only) brother as he rambled through his apology. He got it, Tim was distracted. And he hadn't been eating. And he hadn't been sleeping. Tim didn't even have a _place_ to sleep; he sold his apartment two months ago. Damian found out, but he hadn't told anyone yet. Tim wouldn't have wanted him to. And Tim was too tired to have Dick yelling at him.

"It's okay, Dra-Tim." He scooted closer, hoping Tim wouldn't notice and kind of hoping he would. "Popcorn?"

:::

The extremely uneasy feeling returned as Robin found the door to the Monarch unlocked. Nobody leaves the doors to an abandoned, decrepit movie theatre unlocked.

On an inhale, she walked through the door, dropping into a crouch and glancing across the room. Other than an emptied concessions stand, some overturned benches, and thirty-year-old movie posters still hanging in their glass, the room was deserted.

Proxy said the heat signature was in the auditorium, though, so that's where Robin headed, mildewed carpet making an unappealing crunching sound under her tactical boots.

Robin pulled back the heavy (and stinking) velvet curtain, surprised to find the front of the auditorium lit by two camping lanterns. A tall, thin woman was, as Proxy predicted, pacing in front of the (remaining) seats.

"Harleen?" As a rule, she referred to the former psychologist by her full name.

Harley's eyes shot to the doorway. "Robin! I was worried you hadn't heard me."

"Nah. Are yo—"

"I'm alone!"

Robin started toward her, smirking. "I was gonna ask if you were okay, but you got my second question."

Harley laughed nervously, but rushed over to greet her favorite Robin with a hug. Awe, she was worried for her. "I'm glad you're here. There's something, or somebody, really, that you need to know about."

"Okay," Robin said, returning the embrace, "but first, when did you get released from Arkham?" She took a step back, looking Harley in the face. "You did get released, right? Because we talked about this."

The older woman grinned. She really did like the girl; she actually cared about her, and it was so endearing. She was so glad she didn't let Joker kill her. It was nostalgic seeing her back in the Robin costume. "I was released. Not that those useless motherfuckers really helped any."

"You're more sane than usual." She was okay to say that, because she was genuine about it. Not that it ever bothered Harley to be called crazy; she knew she was. She used to date the _Joker_.

"I'm self-medicating."

"Oh. It's working." And it was. The grey tint the woman had acquired from her "fall" at Ace Chemicals was shifting to an almost normal tone, and the two tone colors in her hair had faded to two different shades of purpley-gray, and were blonde at the roots. Her blue eyes shone brightly with awareness.

"Yeah, it makes running my operation, like, fifty-billion times easier, but way more boring."

"Harleen."

"Relax, Robin," she giggled. "I'm keeping it all in Hood's territory; Batsy won't have to deal with me."

"Hood's joined up with the Bats. You hadn't heard?"

"I hadn't. Well, shit, that throws a wrench in my plans." She crossed her arms, pulling a face as she thought. "Wait—what about Batman's 'no killing' thing, because Hood definitely kills, like, I saw him chunk a guy off the bridge right before I—never mind. Don't answer that. That's not why we're here."

Robin purposely ignored the bit about the Red Hood. No killings in the last nine months, at least. _Reported killings_ , a voice in her head that sounded eerily like Tim's decided to remind her. "Right. Why are we here?"

"There's a new player in our game," Harley told her, tone far more serious than Robin could have expected. "And his abilities are nothing you Bats and Birds are prepared for."

:::

Tim shocked everyone when he suited up for patrol with the rest of them. Bruce purposefully gave him the easiest route. Damian pulled Dick to the side and demanded he go with Tim. Only just have returned, he wasn't back on the team yet. Stephanie Brown was Robin. He was glad it was her, and not anybody else, but he wished she was still Batgirl. Not that he was patrolling currently, but he wasn't thrilled to have Barbara in Stephanie's place (even if it was her to begin with). Whenever his father let him be Robin again, Stephanie would go back to being Spoiler. The dynamic would be thrown off. They wouldn't be partners anymore.

That, and he found Barbara positively boring, which was what he told Dick on more than one occasion. And if anyone asked, that was the only reason Damian wanted Stephanie to be Batgirl again.

No one got to leave the Cave, however, before a gunshot followed by the sound of shattering glass and Alfred and Damian shouting echoed down the elevator shaft.

Batman, in his full uniform, bolted up the hidden stairway, the others on his heels, quite coincidentally, in age order. Red Robin thought momentarily that this would totally blow all of their covers and the location of the cave, but they weren't going to lose Damian again, identities be damned.

"Damian! Alf!" Batman called through the house. They quickly found the butler and boy in the the middle of the ballroom, shotgun in the old man's hands.

Alfred looked more irritated than frightened. Actually, he looked only irritated. "One man. He has a gun. He ran in here, I'm sure of it, but he's... vanished."

"'Vanished'?" Batman had a reason to be confused. The ballroom was against the left side of the house, and there was only one entrance, the double-doors they came through. The back wall was completely windows, windows that didn't open and were filling the room with light from the sunset. There was no place to "vanish" to.

"Are you sure he ran in here?" Nightwing asked, eyes scanning the room.

Damian answered for them. "Yes. I blocked the way to the parlor, and Alfred was standing in the way of the library. Fa-Batman, we saw him go in here."

Those two rooms bordered the ballroom. If this—thief?—ran this way, the ballroom was his only option.

"I believe you," Batman put a gloved hand on the boy's shoulder. Damian needed the reassurance. He was a mess when Bruce told him he couldn't be Robin, even if it was only until he healed up. It was a difficult for him mainly because his father didn't just mean physically, he meant mentally, too. And that took time, time he could spend ignoring all the hurt and pain he carried by smashing faces in for justice and letting all those emotions get bottled up into a tight painful weight that _clung to his soul_ in a vice-like grip and slowly _destroyed him_. Or something like that; Tim didn't know. Anyway, it was hard for Damian right now.

"Even so," Red Hood said, walking the perimeter of the room, "he isn't here. Which means he's either escaped an inescapable room, or he was never here."

"He was!" Damian protested. The breathiness in his tone was a good indicator that he was about to have another fit. He'd been having a lot of those since he came back; the frustration would morph into many different emotions before ending in panic. Alfred walked over quickly and pulled the boy against his side. "I swear I saw him!"

"You saw what you thought was a man run in here," Red Robin backed Hood, but kept his tone gentle. "He might have been an illusionist and could make it look like he ran in here."

Nightwing nodded. "Wouldn't be the first one we've come across. Batman?"

Batman had a deep frown showing below his mask. "An illusionist who's managed to get us all in the same place."

As if on cue, the doors slammed shut.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey! Chapter 2, we're getting somewhere!**

 **Trigger warnings: pedophilia; attempted rape of a minor. And swearing, but I think you'll live.**

 **Don't forget to read and review; it makes me feel good about myself. DM me if you see any spelling/grammatical errors that are making you rip your hair out so that I can fix them!**

 **The Illusionist**

 **Chapter 2**

"Fuckin' shit."

Hood said that, but they were all thinking it. Nobody moved for a moment, and all eyes, masked or not, turned to Batman, waiting for him to give them a plan.

Instead, Batman stomped towards the door muttering to himself "in my own damn house," as if this was no biggie. The door wouldn't budge when he pushed against it, and the knob was locked tight. He wasn't looking forward to having to break down the doors he watched his father carve himself in the workshop out back.

Just before he could slam his shoulder against it, it wasn't there anymore. He was staring out across a darkened warehouse. He spun around to look at his boys, startled that he could see their faces. Their masks were gone.

The scene that suddenly unfolded in front of them, like a glitch in a video game, wasn't anything they hadn't seen before. Something, definitely illegal, had been sold. This was obviously a big operation, bigger than the usual, but it looked like the sell had already taken place. In the room were three strapped goons and their boss, and... and a little kid. A little kid, maybe seven or eight, tucked in between two of the crates, pulling at their shoestrings. They had a mop of blonde curls that fell around their ears, and, in their overalls and sneakers, the group couldn't tell if they were a boy or girl.

"Firstly," Dick whispered as the group took to the shadows, "what the hell? Secondly, what's our move, B?"

Bruce glanced over the scene, trying to formulate a plan. Damian spoke while he thought. "Why is there a kid here?"

"Police don't fire if there are kids in the building," Jason answered, only to be countered by Tim.

"That's not true."

Jason scoffed. "Nobody wants to be the cop that killed a little kid. Right, Dickie?"

"Guys, shut up," Bruce interrupted. "Damian, Alfred, stay here, don't get in the way." So maybe it was Batman talking. "Tim, get the kid out of the way. Dick, Jase, I need—"

"Congratulations, gentlemen," the boss announced, cutting Bruce off. His voice, clear, loud, and incredibly distinctive, had Bruce and Tim looking at each other.

"Arthur Brown," Tim provided as explanation to the rest.

"It's been a pleasure working with you. Dave, and... whatever your name is," Brown continued, pointing to the shortest goon. Arthur looked... younger than Tim remembered him. "Drinks on me."

Jason knitted his brows, "Wait, 'Brown'?"

"Yeah," Tim replied, fighting the urge to roll his eyes. Wow, his patience really was thin these days. "Stephanie's father."

"So is the kid Stephanie?" Damian asked.

Dick gave him the "did-you-really-just-say-that-thing" look. It was ironic, since it was usually leveled at Stephanie. "No, because Stephanie is nineteen, Damian."

The eleven-year-old crossed his arms, put out by Dick's condescending tone, and nodded toward the back wall of the lit office space directly behind them. An office space Dick and the rest probably should have noticed before. The calendar on the wall was turned to October, two-thousand-and-five.

"Two-thousand-and-five," Damian stated. "Stephanie would have been eight. She could have still been seven. The days aren't marked off."

Tim was surprised that Damian knew that Stephanie's birthday was in October. More that he cared to know.

"Bill, do me a favor, take Stevie back to her mother." So there. "We'll be at the Iceberg when you drop her off." Arthur didn't even acknowledge his daughter as he brushed by her, leading his men out, a large duffle bag, no doubt carry their payment, flung over his shoulder. But it didn't escape any of the boys when she coward away from him. She had bruises on her thin arms, they noticed.

'Not everyone is as lucky as you are,' Damian remembered Stephanie once telling him, 'to have a dad who loves them like yours does.'

As Arthur left, he set a penny, heads up, on the edge of a crate. He wasn't wearing gloves; he was leaving a fingerprint at a crime scene. He probably left more clues other places as well.

"This doesn't make any sense," Dick said. "Is this the Multiverse?"

Jason huffed. "No, this isn't how the Multiverse works. It's also not important right now. We need to stop that guy from leaving with Stephanie. He's a pedophile if I ever saw one."

Tim and Bruce, as they discovered, were already on that. It was funny, none of the boys saw them move, but Bruce was crouched behind the boxes directly in front of the creepy goon, Bill, who was packing up their things and muttering to himself, and Tim was sneaking over to where Stephanie was sitting. From the terrified and distrusting look on her face, they could tell she didn't like Bill at all.

"Guess your daddy's leaving me to babysit again," Bill said, his voice as greasy as his hair. "But we always have fun when it's just you and me, huh?"

Tim was just reaching Stephanie when she let out a horrible scream "NO!", hopped to her feet, and took off running further into the warehouse, faster than most seven-to-eight-year-olds should be able to move.

Bruce stood from his crouch, aiming a sucker-punch for the back of Bill's head before he could go after the girl, but, to everyone's horror, his fist went through him. The power behind his arm threw him forward, and he should have tripped over the boxes, maybe run into Bill, but he didn't. He went through them. And Bill didn't seem to notice.

Tim raced after Stephanie and cautiously called out her name. "Steph? Stephanie?"

She didn't slow down, and she didn't look back. She hadn't heard him.

Just like the first shift, they hadn't noticed a change until it had already happened. Tim was still ahead of the group, but only by a few feet; they had moved. They weren't at the front of the warehouse anymore. The office space was way behind them, and they were now standing among the boxes. It was as if they were... following Stephanie?

Even as fast as she was, Stephanie couldn't outrun the nasty beast of a man, and he quickly caught up to her, clubbing her in the back of the head with his forearm and sending her face-first into the cement floor.

Bruce nearly roared, after the man again—how dare he hit a child like that? A child that was about the age of a little boy he'd first seen at a circus—but, just as before, his swings did nothing, and his fists met empty air.

"B, stop it," Tim called to him. "There's nothing we can do."

Bruce turned to him panting, face red, and eye livid. But Tim was right, this was all beyond their control. All they could do was watch.

But not Damian. Bruce stepped briskly toward his youngest son, pressing his round face against his abdomen. If what he feared would happen was about to, he couldn't let him see it.

Bill knelt to the floor and flipped Stephanie over onto her back, yanking at the fasteners on her overalls. She had blood running from her nose and tears streaming down her cheeks, but she still kicked and screamed like hell, fighting him with as much power she could.

"Shaddup," Bill snarled, ruthlessly backhanding her across the face. Tim had to cover his face; he couldn't watch this. Dick was next to him in three strides, placing a comforting hand on the back of his neck, and Tim leaned slightly against him.

Pure fire burned in Alfred's eyes, he'd always had a paternal-like fondness for Stephanie, and watching this was breaking his heart. Glancing over to Jason, Alfred noticed, though he looked just as angry as the rest of them, he wasn't surprised. It occurred to the man that Jason probably knew of these types of happenings firsthand. He didn't touch the young man, but he moved closer to him, and for that, Jason was grateful.

It was impossible to shutdown on the scene with Stephanie screaming and the horrific knowledge of what was about to happen. With Stephanie fighting him, Bill couldn't get her legs out of her pants, but that just made him hit her again. It took Bruce a few minutes to notice due to the body-armor, but Damian was shaking. He dropped to a knee, pulling Damian's face against his shoulder and rocking him gently. Stephanie meant a lot to him, and he was scared for her.

"What the hell is going on here?" Arthur Brown appeared behind them, voice chillingly calm. Relief flooded through Tim, mostly because he now understood what was going on. Stephanie had told him about this before, and he hadn't put it together because it didn't make sense that they were seeing it at all.

There was no hiding what Bill was doing. He was on top of Brown's child, pants undone, trying to rip her clothes off. Arthur must have heard Stephanie screaming and came after them.

Bill fumbled away, trying to hook his pants and get as far away from Stephanie and her father as he could. Brown knelt down gently and gathered his terrified and bleeding daughter into his arms. He stood slowly, murmuring comforts to his child as she sobbed.

"You should probably go grab that drink with the boys, maybe a lot of 'em," his voice was emotionless, but his face showed utter disgust. "And call your mother."

With that, Arthur strode away from the stunned, dirty excuse for a man. He wouldn't make it to next week, he knew.

"'M s-sorry," Stephanie mumbled into her father's chest. Pain laced each syllable, and if Arthur said anything cruel to her, Jason would find him and snap his neck as soon as this bad trip was over.

Luckily for him, he didn't. "It's not your fault, Stevie. It's mine, completely mine."

Everything was gone in a blink. They were all there, standing in the ballroom, masks replaced, and it was dark outside.

"Do you trust me?" Harley asked, leading Robin to a folding table covered with open files and blurry polaroid pictures.

"That's an unsettling preface to a conversation." And that was dodging the question. But, apart from the healthy level of paranoia due to the fact that, yes, Harley was crazy, Robin wasn't sure what her answer was.

The older woman didn't exactly frown. She sort of expected that Robin wouldn't trust her. She shouldn't trust her. "So, no?"

"I trust you not to kill me."

That was as good as she could hope for with any of the Bats.

"Well I need you to trust me with something else," she grabbed Robin's gauntleted wrists seriously. "I need you to trust that I don't want you dead, and that I'll never try to get you killed."

Robin searched Harley's face, looking for something, a tell, something to explain what was going on. Something that proved she wasn't lying. But she was distracted; Harley looked so much older, so weary, without her crudely-drawn makeup. "Okay."

"And you feel the same." It was a statement, not a question. The Bats don't kill, and Robin had saved Harley's life enough times by now that it was obvious that she cared if she died.

Wordlessly, Robin walked up to the table and began sorting through a monstrously unorganized pile of files. They weren't... what she expected—H. QUINZEL, F. LAWTON, J. NAIPER... A. BROWN. Some files had the names of places, of people, most of which she knew, or at least knew of. Some were just numbers. Many of them had the words "TOP SECRET" stamped in blue letters on the cover.

"Who's Naiper?" Robin asked, but she didn't need an answer after flipping open the file. She closed it immediately. She didn't really want to know why that fucker was how he was.

A legal pad was tucked under a pile of blurry polariods. In cramped, scratchy letters, all caps (and in handwriting she'd seen on the back of enough playing cards to know was Joker's. It was strange to picture that death-worshipping freak sitting at a desk taking notes), were three lists: potential targets, potential suspects, potential allies. "Robin" was written at the top of the third list, which was rather short compared to the others. Always a frustrating situation, having more problems than friends. The other names followed as "Catwoman, Red Hood (if Robin agrees), Red Arrow." "Black Canary" was written above Jason's mantle, but had been scratched out. Dinah was on her honeymoon. Robin would have thought Harley would put the woman at the top of the list, seeing as she had the most pull of all of them. Harley obviously told Joker what to write down, because the clown was certainly not acquainted with any of these people.

Harley stayed silent as Robin looked everything over.

"Catwoman wouldn't have helped you," Robin commented off-handedly. And she wouldn't have. Selina Kyle was trying desperately to gain Bruce's favor, and this definitely wouldn't help her cause. "Neither would Hood..." Straight from Jason's own mouth, he couldn't get involved where Joker was concerned for the sake of his own sanity.

Harley nodded in response, yet began to entreat her with a "but, do you think yo—"

"And I wouldn't ask him to."

Harley nodded again. She understood.

The potential targets list caught Robin's eye specifically. It was a rather diverse list, filled with people of varying location and power. The names at the top of the list were not unexpected—Bruce Wayne and Tim Wayne. The billionaire and the billionaire's already ridiculously rich heir.

"What sort of operation is this guy running?" Robin asked, scanning the list of suspects. Penguin was on it, and she almost snorted. Talia was on it, too, but that made more sense.

"He's in the business of exposing secrets," Harley explained. Like Arthur. Why wasn't he a suspect? She saw his file among the mess. A mess that was really screwing with her OCD. "And he dropped some bombshells recently. He started out actually pretty helpful. Exposing dirty cops, cheating spouses, and such. Dropped anonymous tips to the gossip column for the Globe. Then he escalated. He posted the ten-year LexCorp business plan to the WE forum."

Robin already knew about that. Luthor tried to sue WE, even after Tim deleted the post, and Bruce personally explained the situation in a three hour phone conference. The post was made using an anonymous account from an untraceable IP address. The suing, of course, fell through. Bruce's attorneys tore the other man apart.

"He burned twelve American covert operatives undercover in Europe by posting their personal information on the Internet," Harley continued, "and he promises he has the dirt on at least twenty more. He also claims to have government secrets, and is being paid off so that he won't post them online. I don't know how the whole money-transfer thing works, but they somehow can't catch him that way, either, which is totally stupid."

Robin crossed her arms. "So he hides behind a computer screen? I think I know of a couple people who would be more helpful in this department than I am."

"That's just the thing! He doesn't always hide." Harley flipped through the files vigorously until she found the sheet she was looking for. "See there? He stapled the access codes to the Arkham security system on the wall inside the jail."

"Hospital."

"Sure it is. The bulletin board that this was stapled to was in a common room in the high security area. No access without three different codes, one of them changes weekly, a card, and a fingerprint scanner. Not to mention he would have had to find a way to bypass the guards or an alias that would hold up against background checks. No one unusual was caught on any of the cameras, and none of the guards remember seeing anyone other than the usual employees. The sign being posted isn't on camera. It was just suddenly there."

"And your certain this is the same guy?"

"He took credit for it, at least." So, no.

"Are you sure it wasn't someone already on the inside? An employee?"

"On that day at that particular time, anyone who would've had the clearance has an alibi. Every last person was caught on a different camera in a different part of the building. Nobody was even on the floor, and there was no record of any change in the system."

"What are the names of the people who do have that kind of clearance?"

"Five people: three psychologists—Dr. Angela Yung, Dr. Joanne Keller, and Dr. Ian Howard—then the chief of security, Johnson, and the mayor, of course. All caught on camera, and the mayor was in Monaco on vacation with his wife. Anniversary, fifteen years."

Robin frowned. "Hady's corrupt, and he's got lots of friends in low places. Are you sure he's in Monaco?"

"Along with the plane and hotel purchases on his credit card, we have a pricey prostitute and big bar tab to corroborate it.

"My money's still on one of the employees. He sounds like he's into the sort of stuff Ridder and Cluemaster," Robin almost choked on the word, "get into. Researching and organizing heists, I mean. He'd have to have incredible computer skills to hack the Arkham network, but I've seen it done before. It isn't impossible to get in and change things around... I'll bet he works for whoever does the tech for Arkham. He could get the access codes that way, too."

Harley was already glad to have Robin involved. "Then we'll need to run background checks on everyone in Tech."

"Yes. Focus on people who've been all over the building before or have been caught chatting with the patients."

"Inmates."

"Whatever." Robin flipped back to the legal pad. "Why do you think the Wayne's are targets? Wasn't the LexCorp leak to help the only competition?"

Harley leaned back against the handicap railing. "Maybe. We think it was more of a warmup for this guy to see just what kind of damage he could do. Helping WE was just a side affect. Apart from the Wayne's being disgustingly rich," ain't that the truth, "they are, ya know, Batman and Robin. 'Scuse me, Red Robin."

Joker knew who Batman was. Jason's mother, whom they didn't speak of, told the clown that Jason was Robin before the day that they didn't speak about. It wouldn't have been too difficult to see the correlation between Bruce Wayne and his ward and Batman and Robin. It had always been so ridiculously obvious to the current Robin that Bruce Wayne was Batman and whichever boy was living with him was Robin, she couldn't believe they managed to keep everybody fooled. Robin knew Harley knew who the boys all were; Joker, she assumed told her. Harley had slipped up before and called her "Stephanie," but Robin didn't know if Joker knew who she was or Harley figured it out on her own. Joker wouldn't have know about Tim had Bruce not adopted him.

"Yeah, I guess there's that. But how would this..?

"The Illusionist," Harley supplied.

"'The Illusionist'?" Robin repeated. "Why hasn't anybody figured out that if you give a crazy a moniker, they do more crazy shit?"

Harley couldn't agreed more.

"Anyway," Robin continued, "how would 'The Illusionist' know that about B and Red?"

"I'll didn't tell him, if that's what you're implying. Neither did Jack." Okay, it was weird hearing Joker referred to by a real name. "We don't even know who he is."

"I wasn't implying anything." Robin spoke again after a beat. "Who are you working for, Harleen?" She obviously wasn't doing this on her own. She enjoyed chaos like this too much to want to extinguish it.

Harley faltered, back stiffening, eyes turning grave. She was scared of whoever this was.

Robin kept her voice soft, placing a hand on the taller woman's thin arm. "Did they tell you to find me?"

"Not exactly. They told me to find help, and help that wouldn't rat us out." Harley sighed heavily. "So..?"

"Harley, I can't get involved here. Not anymore than I already am." Robin took a step back, faking a grin. "You should really get in touch with Batgirl anyway, she has the tech skills that you probably need for all this."

"I don't trust Batgirl," she said seriously. "I trust you. And we need the help of people we can trust."

"'We'?"

"Remember what I said about you needing to trust me?"

"And I do."

"That 'potential targets' list isn't just potential anymore, Robin. The Illusionist has been bragging, and he's said they're definite targets. All fifty-seven of them. We need your help."


End file.
